The multiversal assassin
by Alien-kun. Verified hyooman
Summary: Evan doesn't have much going for his life, except for some random bouts of luck. The latest event gave him the means to become something great. Blades in hand, he will now carve his path through the multiverse. (Gamer story. Dead and buried. Reborn as "An Archer among Demons")
1. A Gamer in this wonderful world!

*ding ding ding*

A groan escaped from a bundle of sheets. An arm disentangled itself out of the sheets, and tapped the cellphone on the bedside table to make it shut up. When no sound reached the arm's owner's ears, they allowed themselves a sigh.

*ding ding ding*

The sheets went flying, revealing a young man with a murderous look on his face. He turned his dark-green eyes to the bedside table, and saw that the phone was not the cause of the incessant ringing. The man looked around his bedroom, trying to understand who – or what – wanted to get hurt early in the morning.

**Good morning, Gamer!**

The floating screen in front of the man's eyes was not what he expected in the slightest. The screen pulsed in front of him, causing the noise from before.

"Maybe if I…" he muttered, and brought up a finger to tap the screen. The screen changed immediately, enlarging itself as the text on it changed.

**Due to a long number of universal variables and casualty, you have been deemed a satisfactory host for the Game System. Consider yourself lucky.**

**[OK]**

The condescending tone of the screen grated a bit on the still-awakening man's nerves, but he though against acting upon his thoughts. If the… System was anything remotely similar to what he understood, then he could deal with it.

You see, this man wasn't stupid… or at least, he didn't consider himself such. He had read a certain web-comic featuring a similar situation happening to a Korean teen. Sure, in the comic the System didn't actually speak to the host, but it still looked rather similar.

There were two options: he was either still dreaming, in which case anything he did now wouldn't matter, or it was real, and in _that_ case… good things would come.

"Alright then, let's see what you're good for," said the man. He pressed the OK button, and brushed some of his shoulder-length black hair out of his face.

**You are taking your situation well. Impressive.**

**At any rate, a quick explanation of the System's capabilities is in order.**

**To access the different screens, just think the command:**

**Status – shows a numerical quantification of your power, health, and mana reserves;**

**Inventory – allows access to a sub-dimension in which to store your belongings;**

**Mastery – a list of your more theoretical skills;**

**Combos – a list of your physical skills;**

**Spells – a list of your magical skills;**

**Options – different ways to adjust the System for easier access and aesthetics.**

**That is all the commands. When accessing them, you will be given more information on them.**

The man read carefully the list, committing the commands to memory. When he was done, he decided first and foremost to get breakfast before doing anything else.

While he watched the pancakes cooking, a new screen interrupted his line of sight.

**New Mastery:**

**Cooking – rank F – 0/50**

**User's proficiency in preparing food**

**5% chance to prepare good food**

**Importing previous experience…**

**Cooking – rank C – 37/500**

**User's proficiency in preparing food**

**100% chance to prepare good food**

When the screen updated its information, the man sighed in relief: cooking was one of the few things he prided himself in, so losing all his progress in learning it would have hurt.

Finally, after serving himself a plate of pancakes, the man took the time to check all the intricacies of the System… or at least as much as he would need in the immediate future. First, of course, was the Status screen.

**Name: Evan Hughes Jr.**

**LV: 1 (0/5 EXP)**

**HP: 50/50 (+0.5 HP/sec)**

**MP: 50/50 (+0.5 MP/sec)**

**Health: 5**

**Mana: 5**

**ATK: 5**

**DEF: 5**

**HIT: 5**

**SPD: 5**

**MAG: 5**

**RES: 5**

**Status Points: 0**

**Please, tap the stats you need an explanation on.**

Evan took the invitation, and tapped one by one the stats.

**Health – dictates how much damage your body can take before giving out. Increasing it increases HP and HP regeneration**

**Mana – dictates how big your mana pool is. Increasing it increases MP and MP regeneration**

**ATK – How much physical force you can apply (Physical damage)**

**DEF – How easy it is for you to shrug off blows (Physical defense)**

**HIT – How easy it is for you to hit your target (Ranged damage)**

**SPD – How easy it is for you to evade attacks (Speed and reaction time)**

**MAG – How potent your mana is (Magical attack)**

**RES – How resilient your mana is to outside disruption (Magical defense)**

He took note of all his stats, and closed the screen. The rest of his breakfast went as such, opening screens and taking note what they were for. At one point, he took also a notebook to write down his observations. When he was done, he had written as such:

_The Combo and Spells screens were empty for now, I need to check later._

_Spells don't increase in rank on their own. Combos can be combined, aptly enough, and a Spell's rank depends on its components, whatever those are. The options aren't really interesting, though changing the screen's color is nice. If I master a Combo, I can unlock an 'evolution' of sorts._

_Questions:_

_1)How to gain Combos_

_2)How to obtain components_

_3)How to craft a spell with said components_

Satisfied with his findings for the day, Evan washed his plate and decided to speak directly to the System.

"What am I supposed to do with you?"

The screen, this time dark green like Evan's eyes, appeared with an answer.

**The System's main focus is to aid its user gain power. The System grows with the User's power, so it is a mutually beneficial relationship. What the User chooses to do with the power is not the System's concern.**

That wasn't the kind of answer Evan expected, but he was not really against it. Power free of consequences? Sign him up any day! Though, that did bring up another question.

"How am I supposed to gather power, though? This world isn't such a great place for it… even if it's pretty bad as it is."

**The System has a solution for that. On its way through the multiverse, the System has passed through a large number of universes able to support the User's growth. System has enough power left to transport the User to one of the closer worlds, though the User will need to amass more power to leave afterwards.**

Evan paused a moment. It was true that he enjoyed the thought of becoming powerful, but was it actually worth leaving everything behind?

…Yeah, it was. Evan could live without his job easily, and his family… he didn't like thinking about them. He cared about them, sure, but ever since he failed University they all got colder towards him. His friends could live without him. Maybe they'd miss him, but he was sure they would pull through.

Thus, Evan went around his apartment, collecting things he would like having with him, or could be useful… which included pretty much everything except the furniture.

"Alright," Evan said an hour later "I'm ready to go, System."

**Fantastic. Now, please wait…**

After a few seconds, Evan's mind became fuzzy and he felt the floor disappear from under his feet.

* * *

When Evan felt himself return to consciousness, the first thing he registered was something poking his abdomen. He instinctively swatted his hand at it. Some shuffling came from the direction of the poke, meaning there was something or someone moving there.

Evan finally mustered up the energy to open his eyes again, and was met with a wooden ceiling, reminiscent of a cabin or an old tavern. He pulled himself up and observed his environment.

It seemed that his previous assessment was correct: he did find himself inside an old-fashioned tavern. Kneeling next to him, was a woman.

"Sir? Can you understand me? Are you feeling well?" She asked, probably worried about Evan's wellbeing after he… crashed into the place, considering the broken table he was sitting on.

Evan shook his head slowly, more to get some time to get his bearings than anything. "Yeah, I can understand you, and I'm fine… where are we right now?"

The woman's face grew a relieved smile. "I'm glad to hear that. We're in Axel Town, the Adventurer's Guild to be more precise."

Evan furrowed his brows. "Less specifically?"

"…The kingdom of Belzerg?"

Evan shook his head again. "No, doesn't ring any bells. Then again, I'm not entirely sure how I got here in the first place."

The woman's smile washed away, to be replaced with a more somber expression. "You might be suffering from amnesia. Your best bet would be to wait for your memory to return, unless you have anything on you that might jog your memory. Do you remember your name, at least?"

Evan put a finger to his chin for a moment, taking it away to snap his fingers a second later. "Evan. That's definitely it. And…" he patted himself down "…I don't think I have much of anything on me as it stands."

"That's unfortunate, Evan. I am Luna, the Guild's receptionist. As for how you got here, you just appeared in a flash while we were closing up for the night and crashed into that table… You should probably get up if you can."

Evan nodded, and pushed himself off the ground and debris. A quick look at his HP showed that he had taken a small amount of damage from the impact. When he was up on his feet, Evan looked back to Luna.

"I don't think you have any idea of any place where I could spend the night, right?" He asked, hoping against all hope that the woman would be willing to help.

Luna took a minute to think. "Well, if you became an adventurer we could let you sleep in one of the empty rooms for a few days, but that's a rather risky job. I don't honestly know if you have any alternatives, though."

Eric sighed. "I think I'll take my chances with this. Better than nothing, I suppose." He gave a quick look around, noticing some other people who he assumed to be Luna's coworkers. "So, how would this work?"

"I'll give you the quick version: you complete a quest, you get paid. There's normally a fee for joining the Guild, but we can let it slide for now. You'll pay when you can…" Luna covered her face and grimaced. "I hope, at least."

As much as she was complaining, Luna's stride didn't falter one bit. She walked behind a counter on the far end of the tavern, and waved Evan over. When he got closer he could observe an interesting piece of machinery on the counter. The best way he could describe it would be as a blue crystal sphere held up by several metallic sticks with a moving lens underneath it. A piece of paper was placed underneath the contraption.

"Place your hand on the orb, please," said Luna without much excitement.

Evan did as told. The sphere gained a shine to it, and a beam of light emerged from under the sphere. The beam was directed by the lens, and it started leaving text on the paper. After a few moments it was done, and Luna gave a once over to the card.

She gave Evan a dry look. "You're absolutely average, in any way. It's almost impressive."

Evan returned the dry look just as easily. They held the look for a few minutes, seemingly staring into each other's soul.

"I suppose it will do," relented Luna. "We'll gear you up tomorrow. For now, go get some sleep… Eris knows I need some too. Room five."

"Will do. Have a good night, Luna." Evan left quickly, going up the stairs.

Evan closed the door to his room, and released a breath. His acting actually worked!

**New Mastery:**

**Acting – rank F – 0/50**

**User's proficiency to pretend being someone they are not**

**10% chance to put up a convincing performance**

**Importing previous experience…**

**Acting – rank E – 98/100**

**User's proficiency to pretend being someone they are not**

**25% chance to put up a convincing performance**

…He had been very lucky. Very, very lucky. If he got discovered, that would spell a lot of trouble for him. At least, he had a rather simple part to play: an amnesiac. As long as he pretended to not remember anything from before that day, he would be ok. And who knew, maybe he would be able to increase that skill enough to not have to worry about others.

Unfortunately, Evan wasn't tired in the slightest. The main reason why? He had woken up not even two hours ago.

**User can sleep at will, but can skip that along with other bodily functions if desired.**

**System suggests trying to use a weapon and work on the related Mastery. It should be useful soon.**

Well, the system hadn't steered Evan wrong yet, and its reasoning had no faults that he could see, so he scoured his Inventory for anything that could be used as a weapon. His eyes fell on a long knife he would normally use to gut fish. That would work.

He pulled it out of the inventory, and gave it a once over for safety. As he did that, a screen appeared in his line of sight.

**Cooking knife – rank E**

**A knife good for cutting tender flesh off the bones**

**+5 ATK, +1 HIT**

Evan was rather surprised: items would add to his base stats? That had the potential to be very useful later on! For now, he'd take all the help he could get.

He stood in the middle of his small bedroom, and gave a few swings to the knife, trying to get a feel for it.

**New Mastery:**

**Short blade combat – rank F – 0/50**

**User's aptitude for fighting with short blades**

**10% extra damage when using short blades**

**New Combos:**

**Slash – rank F – 0/50**

**5 MP**

**Hits: 1**

**A quick slash with a blade**

**10% extra attack speed**

**Stab – rank F – 0/50**

**5 MP**

**Hits: 1**

**A strong stab with a blade**

**10% extra damage**

Evan was elated at the few new skills he'd gained in such a short time, and felt more than ready to put some practice in. At least enough to combine the two Combos… maybe get some practice in the one that resulted too.

* * *

Well, he managed. He may have gone a bit over the top, too.

**Quick Slash – rank E – 3/100**

**10 MP**

**Hits: 1**

**A quick slash with a blade**

**25% extra damage and attack speed**

**Power Stab – rank E – 5/100**

**10 MP**

**Hits: 1**

**A strong stab with a blade**

**25% extra damage and chance to inflict [Bleed]**

**New Combos:**

**Slash 'n Stab – rank E – 36/100**

**20 MP**

**Hits: 2**

**A quick slash followed by a stab**

**25% extra damage, attack speed, chance of [Bleed]**

**Speed Jab – rank E – 7/100**

**10 MP**

**Hits: 1**

**A quick jab with your fist**

**25% extra damage and attack speed**

**Power Hook – rank E – 3/100**

**10 MP**

**Hits: 1**

**A strong hook with your fist**

**25% extra damage and chance to inflict [Stun]**

**Comet Punch – rank E – 13/100**

**10 MP**

**Hits: 1**

**A fast punch with all your power**

**25% extra damage, attack speed, chance of [Stun]**

**Updated Mastery:**

**Short blade combat – rank E – 94/100**

**User's aptitude for fighting with short blades**

**25% extra damage when using short blades**

**Unarmed combat – rank E – 73/100**

**User's aptitude to fight without weapons**

**25% extra damage when fighting unarmed**

Yes, he'd definitely gone overboard. His arms ached, but after resting only for fifteen minutes he was perfectly fine again. Another perk of the System, he assumed.

When morning finally rolled around, Evan went downstairs to meet up with Luna. The tavern, which last night was deserted, that morning was bustling with activity. The tables were full, people were laughing, chattering and eating, and… Luna noticed that Evan finally got downstairs.

"Good morning Evan! I hope you had a good sleep!" Luna began, gesturing for the man to follow her. "Now, we need to get you some gear. You can borrow some from the Guild, but you will need to buy some of your own when you have the money."

Evan nodded, and followed along.

"Do you have any ideas as to what you would like to try first?"

Evan pretended to think it up a bit before giving an answer. "I think a dagger might be decent as a start. I think I used one before… probably? It's fuzzy, but I definitely remember using something light."

Luna gave a content smile at seeing Evan's memory 'returning' to him, and ushered him over to the rear of the tavern. There, among most other things, he saw a nice dagger sitting on a table. He immediately went for it, and inspected it.

**Hunting dagger – rank D**

**A dagger made to dish out some damage**

**+10 ATK, +3 HIT, +1 SPD**

It really _was_ a nice dagger. Evan kept handling the dagger, getting used to the slightly different balance from his knife, when Luna came up to him with a leather chest piece.

"Would you mind trying this on?" She asked.

Evan gave a thumbs up, and picked up the armor. After some directions from Luna, he was able to wear the armor over his clothes.

**Leather armor – rank D**

**A slightly worn chest piece.**

**+10 DEF, +2 SPD, +2 RES**

It fit very well all things considered, and it boosted his stats rather well for being starter gear.

"Thank you Luna, I think I'm ready to get to work now."

Luna gave him a once over with a critical eye, and nodded. "Yes, it seems you are as ready as can be at the moment. Well, let's get you started on something easy."

Evan followed Luna once more back to the counter, and she produced a sheet of paper from underneath it.

"You have three days to kill five giant toads. You can find them easily around town. Be careful, though. They are immune to blunt force. If you lose your dagger for whatever reason, run away," she warned.

Evan gave a small salute and took her words to heart. He didn't want his story to finish before it had an actual chance to start yet, after all.

* * *

He was finally out in the open, away from the people's eyes, and it felt _good_! Hiding like that would really take a toll on his mind, unless he got used to it fast enough. No time to think about what-ifs, though, as he could see a giant toad coming for him. He quickly pulled out his dagger and waited to see what the frog would do.

**Name: Giant Toad**

**LV: 2**

**HP: 80/80**

**MP: 10/10**

**Health: 8**

**Mana: 1**

**ATK: 10**

**DEF: 15**

**HIT: 8**

**SPD: 4**

**MAG: 2**

**RES: 2**

**A Toad. It's slow and dumb, but can take some damage. The tongue is very sticky.**

Evan really appreciated the System's help in those moments. The toad opened its mouth and threw its tongue at Evan, who evaded it just in time. The frog tried again, and this time Evan rolled under the tongue. He used the roll to get close to the frog, and used his **Slash 'n Stab** combo. He slashed the frog's skin open, far faster than he would've moved normally, and stabbed his dagger into its gut. It wasn't deep enough to inflict **[Bleed]**, but it still dealt some damage… 7, that is.

Evan moved back quickly, and avoided another hit from the tongue. How was he supposed to bring down that thing when he could barely deal damage to it?!

As he dodged another attack, an idea popped in his head. Quickly, he pulled out his knife, and plunged it in the frog's tongue when it tried to attack. With the tongue pinned to the ground, Evan rushed in again and used **Power Stab** as fast as he could. The first hit did nothing, but on the second he saw blood spurt out of the wound. He quickly moved back, and assessed the situation again.

**HP: 63/80 [Bleed: -5 HP/sec]**

Perfect. Now he just had to waste time and cut down the stupid frog!

The frog was trying to remove its tongue from the ground, so Evan decided to give it some help. He leapt up, and slammed down his dagger on the tongue. It was easily sliced in two. On the edge of Evan's vision, a small notification popped up, informing him that he had performed a Critical Hit, dealing a lot of damage.

Evan stood and watched as the frog lost more and more blood, to the point where it couldn't hold itself up anymore. He kept an eye to its HP, and counted down.

3…

2…

1…

**HP: 0/0**

**You gained 12 EXP! You leveled up!**

Evan opened his Status Screen, and noted that he'd gained 10 Stat Points… He mulled over what to do with them. Last night he'd easily exhausted himself multiple times, yet he didn't gain a single point in any stat. That pointed towards the possibility of Stat Points and equipment to be the only way to modify his stats. Since there was no reason to hoard, Evan distributed his points.

**Health: 5 +1**

**Mana: 5 +2**

**ATK: 5 +2**

**DEF: 5 +1**

**HIT: 5 +1**

**SPD: 5 +3**

He was very close to gaining a new level, and it would take… just a bit more than a minute to recover his MP and HP, so he could allow himself to kill another toad. In the meantime, he gave a look to his other notifications:

**New Combo:**

**Flying Slash - rank E - 1/100**

**10 MP**

**Jump up, and slash down.**

**25% extra damage and chance for Critical Hit**

**Mastery Upgraded:**

**Short blade combat – rank D – 0/250**

**User's aptitude for fighting with short blades**

**50% extra damage when using short blades**

That proved that it was possible to gain a combo of a higher rank if done correctly. It was good to know.

* * *

The next toad proved to be much easier, as he already had an idea of the Toad's basic patterns. The only reason why he wasn't able to immediately defeat it was that it was level 3, and as such its stats were higher. He still managed to bring it down with the same technique: **Power Stab** the tongue into the ground, and rake in damage along with **[Bleed]**.

It had given him less EXP than the first toad, but he chalked it up to the System giving him a boost for the first kill.

Evan felt rather confident in his ability to finish the quest in one day, thus he rushed off again to defeat the last three toads.

It took no more than an hour between finding isolated toads, killing them, leveling up, and recovering. In the end, he amassed a decent bit of power:

**Name: Evan Hughes Jr.**

**LV: 4 (10/64 EXP)**

**HP: 80/80 (+0.8 HP/sec)**

**MP: 90/90 (+0.9 MP/sec)**

**Health: 8**

**Mana: 9**

**ATK: 12 (22)**

**DEF: 10 (20)**

**HIT: 8 (11)**

**SPD: 10 (13)**

**MAG: 5**

**RES: 8 (10)**

**Stat Points: 0**

All the frogs combined had been just enough to give him an extra level, but he wasn't really complaining. Even the slightest bit of extra power helped, as it stood.

Whistling a jaunty tune, Evan returned to the Guild and made a beeline for Luna's counter. He placed the leaflet for the quest down. "Quest complete! Five giant toads are now dead."

Luna rose a skeptical eyebrow. "You wouldn't mind if I were to check your card to be safe, right?"

Evan shook his head, and pulled out the aforementioned card. "I'm not sure how that would help you, though."

Luna didn't answer, instead she kept staring at the card in shock. "Unbelievable… it took you less than two hours to kill those Toads?! And your stats have increased greatly, to boot!"

He looked on, a bit concerned. "Well, yeah? I did. The bodies should still be where I left them if you want to check…"

Luna shook her head. "No, no, the card records all of your kills anyway. Still, to be done so easily, and with such average stats… is unheard of!"

"What can I say-" Evan puffed his chest out a bit "-I'm great like that."

The blonde receptionist gave him a small smile, chortling at his antics. "I suppose you do deserve some praise, but don't let it get to your head, ok? Adventurers much stronger than you fell because of pride."

After Evan calmed down, Luna gave him his pay for the quest: 25000 Eris. Immediately, Evan gave part of it back to Luna. "To fix my debt," he said. Luna graciously took the money and put it away.

**Quest Complete:**

**Kill 5 Giant Toads in three days (5/5)**

**Reward: 50 EXP**

Caught by a bout of inspiration, Evan asked if he could be allowed to cook his own lunch in the Guild's kitchen. Luna directed him to the actual cook, and returned to her work.

The cook was a kind fellow, allowing Evan to use the kitchen as long as there was no big need of it and that he didn't waste ingredients. After paying a few Eris for the ingredients, Evan got to work on making himself a nice steak.

After a nice, uneventful lunch, Evan went into town to see if he could maybe get an extra dagger, or some more equipment in general. His knife was decent and all, but it didn't hold a candle to an actual weapon. Maybe he could invest in some toughened gloves to complement his unarmed combat?

He remembered a forge which he had passed by earlier on the way to his quest, so he made that his first stop. A bell rang as soon as he opened the door, and the sound of metal striking metal stopped for a few seconds.

"Just a moment! I'll be there soon!" Came the sound of a woman's voice from the back.

Evan decided to give a look around the shop and see what weapons caught his fancy. Something that he enjoyed about the System was that the skills were generic enough to not care about the specifics of a weapon, as long as it fit certain criteria. For example, **Short blade combat** affected anything from daggers to knives to kukri. And that was, in fact, what caught his eye: a kukri blade. It had a wooden handle wrapped with leather, and the blunt part of the blade was painted a deep black.

**Black steel kukri – rank C**

**A kukri forged specifically to rend flesh and bone**

**+25 ATK, +7 HIT, +5 SPD**

The boosts from that weapon alone were amazing! He needed it, stat.

A door closed behind Evan, and he turned to see the cause. Clad in brown and grey robes, and with a black apron, was a woman. She was rather stocky, with defined muscles from working the forge. Her red hair was cut short, probably to prevent it from catching on fire, and her face was covered in soot.

"Welcome to Elzi's Forge, lad!" The woman greeted Evan with a bright smile. "If you didn't guess, I'm Elzi. Now, I see that something already caught your interest," she commented, pointing at the kukri. "You have some good eyes on you, that's one blade I'm rather proud of!" She paused. "…Not that my other blades are any worse, of course, just personal preference."

Evan was finding Elzi's attitude rather nice to be around. He'd definitely enjoy swinging by again when he had more money. "Yeah, this is a rather nice kukri. How much for it?"

"Eight thousand Eris, lad."

He withdrew the necessary amount from the Inventory, making it look like he pulled the money out of a pocket, and handed it over.

"Since I'm already here, would you happen to have any light-to-medium armor? This is nice and all, but I do need to return it soon."

Elzi showed Evan to a side room, in which were several sets of armor exposed. She gave him an overview of several sets, ranging from 10.000 to over 40.000 Eris. He settled for a set of studded leather armor, which came with shins and bracers too. It wasn't full armor, but it was already better than nothing.

**Studded armor set (incomplete) – rank C**

**A set consisting of chest, forearm, and shin protection.**

**+20 DEF, +2 ATK, +1 SPD**

The set was 12.000 Eris, which Evan could barely afford. As it stood, he only had left 4.000 Eris. They would tide him over until tomorrow, but he didn't have enough money for big expenses.

Bidding goodbye to Elzi, Evan decided that he might as well ask the System how to get some magical components. He wasn't going to start flinging fireballs anytime soon with his low MAG, but it was good to cover his bases.

**There are two main components: Elements and Shapes. Combining the two types in different ways can give wildly varied effects. To obtain an Element the general rule is to experience a place with a lot of that element, or a lot of that mana. For example, fire would be found near a volcano.**

**To obtain Shapes is harder, as normally shaping mana would take years of experience. The System allows the User to learn Shapes at the cost of some EXP. Specifically, the next TOT amount of EXP would be nullified until the quota was met. Higher-rank Shapes take more EXP.**

After a quick inquiry, and learning that the weakest Shape costed 100 EXP, he opted to _not_ get into magic for a while. Maybe around level 10 would be a good time to start investing in Shape Components. That way, he would have the time to get a couple of elements… hopefully. At least one.

Without much else to do for the day, Evan decided to pass some time improving his skills, and maybe come up with a couple of new combos. Northeast of the town, outside of the walls, was a small zone in which monsters didn't seem to go for whatever reason. Thus, he went to train there.

* * *

A couple of hours later, Evan found himself rather happy with his efforts: he had chosen to concentrate his training each day on a different skill, to capitalize on the big amount of time he had. For that day, he used **Quick Slash**, hoping that its 'evolutions' would allow him to slice and dice his enemies lightning-fast.

**Flashing Blade – rank C – 309/500 **

**50 MP**

**Hits: 1**

**A quick slash with a blade**

**100% extra damage and attack speed**

**Short blade combat – rank C – 418/500**

**User's aptitude for fighting with short blades**

**100% extra damage when using short blades**

Now, **Flashing Blade** cost more than half his maximum MP, but it definitely had a high damage to make up for it! Running the math in his head, he came to the conclusion that all his boosts together would deal around 117 raw damage! Also, he was incredibly fast when using that skill, his arm and kukri becoming a literal flash to the eye.

Once again, he went and cooked himself dinner before the rush of adventurers coming to eat their fill at the guild came, and he went to sleep immediately after. No reason to bother people after all, and Evan already felt like his skills were good enough as it stood.

* * *

The day after, Evan went downstairs to meet Luna once more.

"Good morning Luna! Any quest for me today?"

Luna seemed bewildered by what he said, but nodded nonetheless and gave him the same leaflet as the day before. Evan furrowed his brows a bit at that.

"How come it's the same quest as yesterday?" He asked.

"I'm sorry, but as it is your level isn't high enough for other quests. When you reach level seven or eight I'll be able to give you some other quests. Well, either that or you find yourself some teammates." Luna gave him a pointed look. "I'd honestly suggest you find a team soon. Solo adventurers don't do very well against stronger monsters."

Evan nodded thoughtfully. Luna wasn't wrong, having someone else with him would help out if he ever got surrounded. As it stood, he was best to dealing with single enemies rather than hordes.

"I'll see if I can find anyone, it would help a lot… you wouldn't happen to have any suggestions, would you?"

Luna pointed at a notice board a few meters away from the counter. "You can put up an ad there saying that you're looking for teammates, or you can see if there's any teams looking for an assassin like you."

Evan blinked. He was very much certain he hadn't killed people, so why would Luna call him that? And with such calm, too?

"Assassin?" He asked, trying to get an explanation.

Luna gave a sheepish smile. "Right, I hadn't explained that. Normally when making an adventurer's card you'd chose your class, but with your average stats I wasn't sure where to put you except as an adventurer. I was tired, and forgot to do it. When you came back yesterday, your class was already set like that."

After a quick glance to his adventurer's card, Evan had to admit that she was right: he was, in fact, declared as an assassin. It did fit, all things considered: he was fast, hit hard, and tried to kill as fast as possible. He might have to invest a bit more into speed, though. Maybe get a bow as well?

Evan shook his head of all the random plans, and asked one of his last two questions. "Is me being an assassin good, or bad? I'm not sure how this class compares to the others."

"It's actually rather good! I'd say that you fall into the middle-to-high category. Your class is the next level of the 'thief' class, and the last rank would be a 'shinobi'. So, I'd say you're quite lucky with how things turned out."

Evan nodded, deciding to keep his last question for later. He then thanked Luna for her time, took the quest, and went over to the notice board.

On the board were several leaflets for many difficult quests, which he realized from the fact that his only had one skull on it, and the lowest on the board had eight. It must've been pretty dang dangerous.

The only notice requesting teammates seemed to be made by a small child, and asked specifically for advanced classes. He was pretty sure that an assassin wasn't really an advanced class, so he opted against it. It looked like his best choice was to make a notice of his own.

We went back to Luna, asking about the procedure for it.

"There's no real procedure, just write down who you are, what you're looking for, and where you can be found. Put it up, and wait. Someone will end up picking it, and if not there's parties looking for new members coming in every two weeks or so."

"Alright, go it… you wouldn't happen to have anything I could use to write down the notice, would you?"

Luna passed him a sheet of paper, a quill and an ink bottle. Evan took all the stuff and went to sit down at a table. Without being noticed, Evan pulled out a piece of paper of his own from his Inventory and tried writing something decent with a quill.

**New Mastery:**

**Penmanship – rank F – 0/50**

**User's proficiency in fancy writing**

**10% chance to write something readable**

**Importing previous experience…**

**Penmanship – rank E – 37/100**

**User's proficiency in fancy writing**

**25% chance to write something readable**

Evan felt insulted. His calligraphy wasn't _that_ bad!

…though, looking at the results, he was inclined to agree. It was bad. Quills weren't really great when you were used to pens or keyboards.

He had work to do, it seemed. He chose to put off the ad until he could write decently, and instead went on to deal with the quest and get his daily income.

* * *

This time the Toads were even easier to deal with this time around: stab the tongue, use **Flashing Blade**, and most died there. If not, one extra hit or two was all that he needed.

**Name: Evan Hughes Jr.**

**LV: 5 (38/125 EXP)**

**HP: 80/80 (+0.8 HP/sec)**

**MP: 90/90 (+0.9 MP/sec)**

**Health: 8**

**Mana: 9**

**ATK: 16 (41)**

**DEF: 11 (31)**

**HIT: 10 (17)**

**SPD: 13 (19)**

**MAG: 5**

**RES: 8**

**Stat Points: 0**

None of his skills gained anything new, nor did he gain new skills. He was still happy with his new level.

He turned in the quest, and like the last time he left half the payment to cover his debt. Just one more day, and he would be clear.

Instead of swinging his kukri around, that day he went in his room and practiced his **Penmanship**. Every word written counted to his progress, so he decided to keep writing a notice on the paper he had until he had it written just how he liked it. After he had it down, he could keep repeating it until it was readable.

* * *

After some trial and error, he had his ad ready:

_Assassin-class adventurer looking to form a party_

_Preferably required:_

_-Magic casters_

_-Ranged support_

_-Tanks_

_If interested, ask for Evan. I will be available around dinnertime at the Guild._

It wasn't the best by a long shot, but he was ok with it. If it didn't work, he could change it.

Interestingly, his skill only counted words longer than two letters for advancement. He had to write that thing twenty-one times to finally get rank C in it, and make something decent.

**Penmanship – rank C – 32/500**

**User's proficiency in fancy writing**

**100% chance to write something readable**

Now that it was done, Evan felt ok with going down and putting up the ad. After that, it was too late to make his own lunch, and as such Evan resigned himself to order something.

While eating… toad meat, ugh, Evan caught wind of a discussion coming from the notice board. He was sitting close enough to hear it, and had also a clear view of what was going on. Two girls, one looking about six/seventeen, and the other looking around thirteen were talking. Well, more like the smaller one was talking; the older meekly tried to reply.

"There's no reason for you to even try, Yunyun! As soon as they see the greatness that is my explosion magic, they will immediately choose me over anyone else!" Boasted the smaller girl.

The older one, called Yunyun apparently, tried to defend herself. "B-But they might prefer me! I'm still an archwizard too, remember?"

"Hmph!" huffed the small child. "As if anything you do could overshadow the magnificence of explosions! Here, instead of wasting your time-" she plucked Evan's ad and shoved it in Yunyun's hands "-why don't you try another party? This guy looks about right for you, too! Neither of you has any friends, after all!" With her piece said, the small girl left.

"B-But…" Yunyun weakly tried to call the other girl back. "It's not true that I don't have friends…" She murmured, just barely loud enough for Evan to hear.

Evan had heard enough. He pushed back his plate, and went over to the sulking girl.

"Hey, are you feeling ok? Want me to go tell a few words to that other girl?" He asked, hoping to make Yunyun feel better.

"No, no, it's fine!" She responded quickly. "Megumin's my friend, we always end up bantering like that! It's all fine!"

Evan gave her a flat look. "I just heard her berate you and make fun of you. That isn't really friendly banter."

Yunyun's face fell. "Oh… you heard…"

He nodded.

Evan's lack of words made Yunyun fidget a bit. "You see… I have a bit of a hard time opening up, so people usually don't want to deal with me… I suppose she wasn't wrong; I don't really have friends…"

Evan put a hand on Yunyun's shoulder, making her look back up to him. "Hay now, no need to be so down. I'll be your friend if you want."

Yunyun's face brightened up considerably. "You mean it?"

"Yep," answered Evan. "If you want, you could join my party. I was looking for a teammate anyway."

Yunyun looked down to the ad in her hand. "I was actually thinking to try and join this Evan person's party…"

Evan grew a cheeky grin. "Well, look no further, because I am the fabled Evan!"

Yunyun looked at Evan. Then back to the ad. Then back at Evan. The note again.

"You're not like I imagined you."

The flat look returned. "And how did you imagine me?"

"Er… a hood, scarf covering your face, a lot of knives?"

"…The stereotypical assassin, then. Understandable. I assure you that my skills are up to par nonetheless."

Yunyun started panicking. "I-I didn't mean to offend you! I'm sure that your knives- I mean, your skills are sharp- They're good! I'm sure your skills are good!"

A small, amused smile grew on Evan's face. He quickly booped Yunyun's nose, making her snap out of her rambling. "It's all cool. I like defying expectations, anyway." He went to go back to his lunch, when he turned to Yunyun again. "Care to join me?"

And that was how Evan found himself sitting at a table in another world, eating lunch and chatting with a girl around five years his junior.

* * *

**And here we go: you asked, and I delivered.**

**P.S: this chapter has exactly 6969 words. Nice.**


	2. Team Questing in this wonderful world!

Evan paid for both of their lunches, and went on to discussing with Yunyun her skills and how they could work together.

"Well, I have a lot of high-level spells, so I'm sure some of them will be to your liking…"

Evan shook his head. "This isn't about me liking them, it's about working together. Your job is mainly to keep the enemy from overwhelming me. In the meantime, I'll make sure that you're safe as well. Even a powerful archwizard can be overwhelmed in close range."

Yunyun nodded, accepting his observation.

"Ok, let's see how to go about this… we should take some easy quests and see how we deal with those. We can then address whatever problems arise. Good enough?"

Another nod, this time with more vigor.

"Good. In that case, I'll see you here tomorrow morning bright and early. Make sure to eat before we leave, but not too much, ok?"

* * *

Evan's afternoon was spent working on his Unarmed combat this time. Specifically, the **Power Hook.**

**Gigaton Punch – rank C – 15/500**

**50 MP**

**Hits: 1**

**A strong hook with your fist**

**100% extra damage and chance to inflict [Stun]**

**Unarmed combat – rank C – 81/500**

**User's aptitude to fight without weapons**

**100% extra damage when fighting unarmed**

It had taken over two hours, but it was very much worth it! At his next level, Evan really had to concentrate on increasing his MP, though.

With the extra money, he could have also purchased some stuff, but he preferred to conserve his money for the time: he really wanted his own home, not one small room with some bugger snoring like crazy in the next room over.

On an unrelated note, Evan was curious to see what would happen on the higher ranks. What would the skills do, improve beyond 100%? It was not really inventive, though feasible.

* * *

The next morning, Evan found Yunyun in the Guild's tavern eating some eggs for breakfast. He didn't really recognize the kind of egg, but if they served it, then it should've been good.

He went over to Luna like it was becoming a habit, asking about any quests he could do now that he had a teammate.

"Hmmm… Yes, there is something." Luna showed him a new notice, this one with two skulls. "Some Starwolves giving trouble to the farms. They aren't particularly strong, but they tend to hunt in groups. There should be around a dozen, but try to kill as many as you can: they're nothing more than overgrown pests anyways."

Evan took a mental note to go nuts in his swinging. He did have one question. "I understand that they're not too strong, but do they have some specific weakness we could exploit?"

"Well, I've heard that they react rather harshly to electricity, but I wouldn't suggest using lightning spells in a forest. Don't want to start a fire, do we?"

After thanking Luna for the suggestion, Evan joined Yunyun. He slid the leaflet over to her.

"Starwolves? I've heard of them. I'm sure the farmers will be happy if we deal with them," said Yunyun as she finished her food.

Seeing that Yunyun was done, Evan got up.

* * *

The forest in which the Starwolves lurked was northwest of Axel, close to the edge of the fields. As soon as they entered, Evan received a notification.

**Mana Scanning active… 1%**

Evan saw the counter rise very slowly, around 1% every few seconds, so he mentally moved it to the edge of his vision and concentrated on the quest.

"Yunyun," he began quietly "do you have any spells that can help us find the Starwolves?"

Yunyun shook her head. "Enemy detection is a thief skill. Shouldn't you have it?"

"No, I concentrated on combat a bit more. And even then, I started off as an assassin."

They proceeded as quietly as they could, Evan in front and Yunyun in the back. For the first few minutes they didn't find anything, wandering around aimlessly. At one point, Yunyun attracted Evan's attention towards something: some footprints in the mud. Evan bent down to get a better look.

He was sure that all the weird survival shows he watched would help him.

The mud was very wet, meaning that old prints would've faded rather quickly. That meant that the wolves had passed by not too long ago.

"They should be close, Yunyun. Be careful." Evan got up, and unsheathed his kukri, making way in the underbrush.

After another minute or so, the duo stumbled upon what they were looking for. Or rather, the target stumbled into them. A wolf jumped out of the underbrush towards Yunyun, and Evan reacted quickly to hack at it with **Flashing Blade**. The movement was almost imperceptible to the girl, but one second there was a Starwolf about to pounce on her, and the next Evan was standing in front of her, two halves of the wolf passing by either side of her.

Evan now had to be careful. If any of the wolves tried attacking Yunyun now, he couldn't **Flash** again until he recovered some MP.

The remaining four wolves circled around carefully: seeing one of their own get killed so easily put them on guard. The big one was a tough prey. They needed to distract it and go for the smaller one. Its mate, maybe? That would explain why the big one attacked so fast. Its weird black claw was dangerous.

One of the strongest Starwolves of the group tried to attract Evan's attention, weaving in and out of range. It was just fast enough to keep Evan on his toes, wondering when it would attack again. In the meantime, two more wolves went for Yunyun. Evan noticed it, but the stronger wolf blocked his way.

Fortunately, Yunyun was not helpless in the slightest. With a wave of her staff, a storm of ice appeared in front of her, pushing back the wolves. They didn't seem too hurt, but it still bought Yunyun some time to cast another spell. A projectile of magic erupted from her staff, striking the ground between the two wolves. From the point of impact blew a heavy wind, blowing the wolves even further.

The two Starwolves were still alive, but definitely hurt.

Back to Evan, he'd finally caught the wolf with a **Speed Jab** with his left hand, dazing it enough to get a **Power Stab **in. The wolf barely survived, but the **[Bleed]** effect kicked in and killed it.

Yunyun, for her part, was on a roll. An icicle tore through one of the wolves' head, while the other was struck in the shoulder. The last wolf barreled to Yunyun furiously, but Evan rushed in. He didn't have much in the way of MP, so all he could do to stop it was take the hit. The wolf's jaw snapped around his forearm, throwing him into the ground. His armor was definitely ruined, but it blocked the fangs enough that they didn't hurt too much.

Evan quickly stabbed the wolf in the side without using any skills. The Starwolf let go of his arm, and he took the chance to dish out a **Comet Punch**. It didn't cause **[Stun]**, but it still threw the wolf back. A thunderbolt flashed over him, striking the wolf. Evan turned around to see Yunyun holding her staff towards the last wolf.

Seeing some blood trickling from Evan's arm, Yunyun immediately, lowered her staff and kneeled next to him. "Are you feeling alright? Should I bring you back to town?" She asked, worried.

Evan waved off her concerns. "Don't worry, it's just a scratch. I'll be perfectly fine really soon. How about you instead?"

"I'm a bit tired from all the spells, but other than that I'm fine."

Evan laughed a bit. "Glad to hear it. I wouldn't be much as a frontline if I let you get hurt!" Evan observed their surroundings a bit, and deemed it safe enough. "You want to take a little break?"

Yunyun nodded quickly, and went over to sit on a fallen log. Evan in the meantime cleaned his armor and kukri with a rag and went over his notifications.

**You killed:**

**-Starwolf LV 4**

**-Starwolf LV 6**

**Your partner has killed:**

**-Starwolf LV 6**

**-Starwolf LV 5**

**-Starwolf LV 4**

**You gained 90 EXP! You leveled up!**

**New Mastery:**

**Light armor protection – rank F – 1/50**

**User's aptitude to using light armor to its fullest**

**10% extra stat boost from light armor**

Evan was a bit confused. From what he understood, the EXP he gained from an enemy was always equal to its level squared. The total should've been much higher than that! Did Yunyun have an effect on that?

**When the User fights alongside an ally, they will gain full EXP only if they are the one to kill the enemy. Enemies killed by the ally will give only half as much EXP. Be mindful that allies grow stronger alongside the User, so kill-stealing will have the same effect on the ally as it would have on the User. It is best to cooperate and share the spotlight.**

Well, that explained it. Curious, Evan tried to open up Yunyun's stats.

**Name: Yunyun**

**LV: 5 (39/125)**

**HP: 60/60**

**MP: 85/180**

**Health: 6**

**Mana: 13 (18)**

**ATK: 6**

**DEF: 6 (8)**

**HIT: 11**

**SPD: 9 (10)**

**MAG: 19 (34)**

**RES: 10 (13)**

He couldn't see her Stat Points, but that was fair: it wasn't really his business anyway.

Evan couldn't really be mad, since that just went to show that he had some problems that needed to be fixed with his current style. Mainly that he was too slow to properly deal with foes. As such, he decided to throw a good number of points in SPD for that level.

**HIT: 10 +3**

**SPD: 13 +5**

**RES: 8 +2**

That should help out. He might also look into equipment to raise his speed, but that was for later. They still had a quest to accomplish!

* * *

After resting enough for both to recover some mana – all of it in Evan's case – they started searching around the zone for any indication as to where find more Starwolves. It was a peculiar name: Evan honestly imagined them to be magical in some way, but all that was special about them was the silver-grey fur that shimmered with every movement. It was interesting to see how they could be stealthy with such features, but Evan was honestly a bit disappointed.

Nonetheless, the wolves had one key peculiarity: they never strayed far from their den during the day. Yunyun had mentioned it when they started searching after the fight, and it was safe to say that she was right: Evan found the den rather easily just by looking around.

Now Evan and Yunyun were observing the den, trying to come up with a plan for it.

"The den seems to go pretty deep… think you can make it burn in there?"

Yunyun furrowed her brow. "In theory yes, but it would drain away a big chunk of my mana, and I'm still a bit drained… I'm not sure how much help I could be if the wolves got out and attacked us…"

Evan joined Yunyun in a brow-furrowing marathon, running some simulations in his head. He was relatively sure that the wolves weren't enough to have two teams running around, as the notice said they were about a dozen. There was about six or seven in that cave, then. If Yunyun managed to collapse the cave's ceiling along with making it burn, then the wolves would die by suffocation. It was gruesome, but it should work.

Evan relayed quickly his plan to Yunyun, and she agreed… albeit she was still a bit apprehensive.

They quickly got into position: Yunyun at the mouth of the cave, and Evan just behind, ready to step in after she used her spells. Yunyun collected magic at the tip of her staff, and touched the ceiling of the cave with it. The magic formed into a magical rune at the point of contact, waiting to be released. Then, Yunyun pointed at the inside of the cave and a wall of fire emerged inside.

Quickly, Evan snatched up Yunyun and ran away; the large drain on Yunyun's mana had tired her enough that she wouldn't be able to go very fast anyway. Once they were far enough, Yunyun triggered the rune and an explosion similar to a grenade went off, followed by the crumbling of earth and stone.

Once they were far enough, Evan put down Yunyun to let her recover her energies, while he went over the notifications.

**Your partner has killed:**

**-Starwolf LV 5**

**-Starwolf LV 4**

**-Starwolf LV 4**

**-Starwolf LV 6**

**-Alpha Starwolf LV 8**

**-Young Starwolf LV 1**

**-Young Starwolf LV 2**

**You gained 81 EXP!**

**Mana Scanning complete! New Spell Element: [Nature]**

Well, there was something gained from that venture at least.

After a break to let Yunyun stand up on her own, they both went to return to Axel. On the way back, Evan found himself navigating way better than he'd expected before. Moving through the plantlife was laughably easy for him, and at some point he was almost certain that a branch or root moved just slightly to let him pass.

Could that be the power of gaining Elements? He definitely wasn't complaining!

The walk to Axel was devoid of accidents, and after they left the forest the duo found themselves discussing what they would use the quest reward for.

"Well, I was thinking of maybe getting some light armor… I don't want to have to rely on you taking all the damage…"

"Well, that could be worth looking into. I need to fix my bracer anyway, so I'll come with you for that. I might get some toughened gloves, too. I did like punching that wolf. Could be a good way to catch the enemy off-guard, too."

Yunyun's face fell a bit. "Right… that happened. I'm really sorry that you had to get hurt on my behalf, I'll do better, I promise! I–" A finger held in front of her face stopped her from saying anything else.

"I'm the fighter of the group, it's my job to keep the enemies away from you. Even if I get hurt every now and then, it's no big deal… until we find someone who can reliably take damage, that is. My main gimmick is hitting hard and moving fast."

Yunyun kept quiet for a while after that. Whether out of embarrassment, or just unwillingness to say more, Evan didn't know.

* * *

The duo presented their adventurer's cards to Luna, and waited for the quest's reward. After a moment of checking the cards, Luna looked up at the team and produced two bags of coins.

"Congratulations on finishing your first quest together! Here's your reward!"

**Quest Complete:**

**Slay the pack of Starwolves (11/11)**

**Bonus: Slay the Alpha Starwolf (1/1)**

**Reward: +165 EXP**

**Bonus Reward: Starlight blade**

**You leveled up!**

Evan was rather happy to see the amount of Eris they'd gained from the quest: 35.000 each. He quickly pulled out of the bag enough to pay off the rest of his debt, and slid it over to Luna.

Luna accepted easily the money. "Thank you for not making me wait forever for this. Eris knows I didn't need also that on my plate."

"Of course. I'll be back later to return the armor and dagger you let me borrow as well, ok? I got my own stuff now–" he pulled out his kukri and struck a pose with it "—if you couldn't tell."

"Of course, of course," Luna giggled at his silliness "You don't have to rush, very few people need to borrow starter equipment lately."

"Gotcha." He turned to his teammate "Come on, Yunyun. Time for lunch! My treat!"

* * *

After lunch, the two rested a bit to recover from the excitement of their quest. Evan took that as a chance to examine all that he had gained that day. The Starlight Blade was very cool, in fact: reminiscent of the dagger from the Prince of Persia game, but with a longer blade, and no cavity in the handle. It shimmered a bit if placed just right.

**Starlight Blade - rank B**

**A short blade forged with a metal from space**

**+30 ATK, +8 HIT, +6 SPD, +2 RES**

Evan found that he could use both blades, but couldn't benefit from both of their boosts at the same time. He still tried to give both a few swings, just for fun.

**New Mastery:**

**Double Short blade combat – rank F – 1/50**

**User's aptitude for fighting with two blades at once**

**User can define a secondary blade: gain 10% of that blade's stat bonus**

Well, that fixed Evan's issue really quick. Sure, he wouldn't gain a very big boost now, but later? Hoo boy. As it stood, his stats were:

**Name: Evan Hughes Jr.**

**LV: 7 (83/343 EXP)**

**HP: 80/80 (+0.8 HP/sec)**

**MP: 90/90 (+0.9 MP/sec)**

**Health: 8**

**Mana: 9**

**ATK: 16 (+30 +3 = 49)**

**DEF: 11 (+22 = 33)**

**HIT: 13 (+8 +1 = 22)**

**SPD: 18 (+6 +1 +1 = 26)**

**MAG: 5**

**RES: 10 (+2 = 12)**

**Stat Points: 10**

All of his stats seemed rather good for his level, though his HP and MP were lagging behind something fierce. It was time to fix that.

**Health: 8 +3**

**Mana: 9 +3**

**HIT: 13 +2**

**SPD: 18 +2**

There. That should do it.

He had rather nice stats all in all, but he still wanted something to increase his SPD more. Maybe some special boots? Might as well look into that with Yunyun later. The only thing left was the new Element he'd gained.

**Gaining Elements allows the User a certain affinity for it. It starts off weak, but the more the User uses spells of that element, the higher the affinity for that element. Elemental affinities grant different effects.**

**Elements:**

**Nature (facilitates navigation in plant-rich environments)**

Interesting… maybe he could invest in one spell? It would help to grind up his affinity for nature if they had to go in the forest again.

"System, how much would a low-ranked component cost?"

**Rank F – 100 EXP**

**Rank E – 250 EXP**

**Rank D – 500 EXP**

That… was a bit high for his tastes. Doable, certainly, but bothersome. Maybe he could just buy an F-ranked component and go kill a couple of Toads to get the extra EXP?

"System, can you show me the F-rank components?"

**Touch – Cast magic on things you touch**

**Self – Cast magic centered on yourself**

Evan had to ponder a bit. What kind of spell would either component create? Could the System tell him?

"System, if I used the components 'self' and 'nature', what spell would I get?"

**Parsing Syntax:**

**Self(Nature)**

**…**

**Bark skin – rank F**

**5 MP/sec**

**Caster's skin becomes harder**

**+10% DEF and RES**

That was actually very useful! It would drain his MP like crazy, being able to keep it up only for roughly thirty seconds before having to recharge, but it would save his ass more than he cared to admit.

"System, purchase the 'Self' component!"

**Done.**

**EXP reduced by 100**

**Current EXP: -17/343**

There, now he just had to go kill stuff to recover what he lost.

* * *

Evan opened the door to Elzi's Forge and marched in followed by Yunyun.

"Hey Elzi! I'm back!" He yelled to get the woman's attention.

"Be right there lad! Give me a bit!" She yelled from the back.

Evan proceeded to remove his damaged bracer while waiting, and Yunyun wandered around the shop aimlessly.

A moment later, the door opened and Elzi walked in.

"Welcome back, lad! So, what can I help you and your lass with?"

Evan first pointed to Yunyun. "Well, Yunyun wanted some light armor to be a bit safer, and as for me—" he showed her the damaged bracer "—things happened. I wanted to see if you could fix it."

Elzi snatched the bracer, and inspected the tears. "Hmmm… the leather is pretty mangled up, and a little singed too. Looks like a magical bite. Not much I can do for this, but I can get you another one with a discount."

Evan shrugged. "Well, you're the expert."

"Alright, I'll get back to you soon." She then turned to Yunyun. "Alright lass, follow me. Let's get ya geared up!"

Evan went to follow, but Elzi stopped him. "Now now, let the lass have her privacy, alright? I'm not sure if I have armor her size, so I'll have to take her measurements."

"Ok, ok. That's fair." He relented easily, and stepped away. "I think I'll check out some bows. I've been wanting to try my had at them."

And so he went to look, finding some beautifully crafted bows. Two in particular caught his eye: one made of white wood with some intricate glowing azure runes on it. He tried touching it, but found his hand stopped but an invisible force.

A magical barrier to prevent stealing? It made sense: the bow was probably worth a lot.

**Willow Frostbite bow – rank A**

**A bow enchanted with Frost. It is made out of willow wood, which is one of the best for enchantments.**

**+55 HIT, +40 ATK, +30 SPD**

**Arrows deal ice damage**

Yeah, worth a lot. He hadn't seen enchanted weapons before, so it made sense. He wouldn't be surprised if its price wasn't above 50.000 Eris, if not even 100.000!

The other bow, instead, was much simpler. The design was sleek, and the carvings were more decorative than anything.

**Oak-Steelsilk bow – rank C**

**A bow made of simple oak wood and Iron Spider silk, also called steelsilk.**

**+25 HIT, +20 ATK, +10 SPD**

**String is extremely durable**

Testing the bow, it felt rather nice in his hands. He might just buy it.

Well… he was bored. The women were still in the side room, and he wasn't going to be walking in there anytime soon: that way lied death. So, he chose to try out his new spell.

He felt his energy draining just a bit, and his skin felt thicker. Looking at his status… the spell worked on his base stats. Bugger. It was nice, but as it stood it was only a 1-point increase. Later it would become better, certainly, but still.

**New Mastery:**

**Nature affinity – rank F – 1/50**

**User's closeness to Nature magic**

**10% extra effect to Nature spells**

Well, the bonus had increased to 2 points. It was something.

…The skill wasn't rising, though. He tried turning it on and then off again. That one worked. So it increased with each casting? He could work with that. It would also help him with using it at a moment's notice, which was mostly how he would use it.

Time to grind.

* * *

Only three minutes after, Yunyun entered the main shop wearing some light leather armor under her cloak. She had a small spring in her step, and the fluttering of her cloak revealed that she'd purchased also shins and bracers too. They were plain leather, not studded, but they should still help.

Elzi tossed a new bracer to Evan when she entered, and he carefully slipped it on.

Yunyun gave a little twirl in front of Evan. "What do you think?"

"Looks great! I'm sure it'll be a great help." Evan then pointed towards the Oak-Steelsilk bow. "Hey Elzi, how much for that bow?"

"Fourty thousand Eris, lad. Steelsilk ain't cheap, let me tell you. But I'll be nice and throw in a quiver and some arrows for you. Another five thousand for the bracer, by the way."

Evan immediately slammed the money on the table. "Deal."

* * *

"Did you really have to use most of your money on that bow? Now we have to work again tomorrow…"

Evan blinked. Was Yunyun really initiating a conversation? Progress!

"I mean, I _could_'ve waited, but it was a great deal! Plus, I'm literally useless at ranged combat, so I wanted to fix it. I'm an assassin anyway, and what assassin is complete without a bow?"

Yunyun looked up thoughtfully. "…I suppose you're not wrong."

"You know," Evan began "you started being more open. I'm really glad to see that."

"O-Oh! Yeah, you were so nice that I thought I had to try at least and talk a bit more! It's a bit hard sometimes, but it's really easy to talk to you for some reason!"

Still getting embarrassed easily, though. Baby steps. First, he would help her talk to others. Then, she would be able to find her own friends. Having only one friend was a slippery slope that led to being dependent on someone. He didn't want that for Yunyun, she was too nice to deserve being stuck with him.

* * *

Evan needed to increase his dual-wielding skill. And quickly. He was fortunate that he could kill Toads quickly, as they would give him some much-needed EXP and also let him get some practice in. Luna was extremely surprised to hear him wanting to take that quest again, let alone taking two quests in a day! After some reassurance that yes, he was feeling fine, and no, he wouldn't do anything stupid, Luna allowed him to take the quest.

"I suppose there's no rules against taking more than one quest a day… even if no one does that," she said.

Would you like to know why no one went back to fighting low-level monsters in an rpg? Evan had just realized why: they gave almost no EXP. The toads died in one or two normal hits, and he barely gained any EXP at all! It was very frustrating. He did get out of the negative at least, so there was a silver lining.

Evan just went and got the reward money, not caring too much about it at that point. He supposed that he could get something nice for Yunyun. Maybe a new magic staff? He wasn't sure how good her own was; he should've checked.

In the end, Evan passed some time working on his Nature Affinity and his dual-wielding. At one point, though, something weird happened.

**Error: Mastery rank cannot increase further**

**Limitation: Ranks above C for this skill require pure combat experience**

In other words, his **Short Blade Combat** would stay at rank C forever unless he went and fought something. It still gained EXP, though, so maybe if the EXP passed over to the other rank, he could use that to cheat a little bit and build up EXP for whenever he ended up fighting something next.

* * *

He'd gone… a little overboard.

**Short blade combat – rank C – 2.239/500**

**User's aptitude for fighting with short blades**

**100% extra damage when using short blades**

**Double Short blade combat – rank C – 1.839/500**

**User's aptitude for fighting with two blades at once**

**User can define a secondary blade: gain 100% of that blade's stat bonus**

And that was just for a couple of hours of training! If he were to hold off on quests for a couple of days he may actually become terrifyingly strong!

…But that wasn't what Evan wanted. He wanted to travel, to become rich, important, and above all else, he wanted to be powerful. Though a break would still be appreciated.

* * *

His fourth day in that new world… what a surreal experience it was. He'd gone from the bland routine of work-eat-work-sleep, to another routine that was just the same yet much more enjoyable. Maybe it was the thrill of combat? Or the novelty of everything? Evan wasn't sure, but he still enjoyed this new life.

It didn't take much to convince Yunyun to not take a quest for the day: she was a bit skeptical, assuming that they lacked funds thanks to their spending the day before, but a quick show of money made her reconsider.

So, without the need for going out and doing stuff, Evan and Yunyun were getting bored.

"Attention, all adventurers," Evan heard from outside… and inside. And everywhere, really. "There's an urgent quest! All adventurers, please gather in the adventurer's guild at once."

While the message repeated itself, Evan turned to Yunyun. "Any idea what this could be?"

Yunyun put a finger to her chin thoughtfully. "…Well, it's just about cabbage season, so it might be that…"

Evan blinked. And again. What did he just hear? Why would they need adventurers to gather cabbages? Were there monsters that came to eat them or something?

Evan asked just that, making Yunyun giggle a bit. "No, no. I wonder what vegetables are like where you're from… Anyway, the cabbages fly here, and if we don't catch them they will fly off to die somewhere. They're so tasty that people pay a lot just for one cabbage."

* * *

And that was how they found themselves in the crowd of adventurers waiting for the horde of cabbages to fly towards them.

Who'd have expected that vegetables in that world would be worth so much? Just one cabbage would net him 10.000 Eris! It was ridiculous! But he wasn't going to spit on easy money. He may not get much EXP, but who cared?

**New Quest:**

**Harvest cabbages (0)**

**Note: targets will be automatically added to Inventory**

The cabbages started closing in, and Evan readied his blades. He was ready!

As soon as they were given the go ahead, Evan zipped forward, slashing at any cabbage coming close enough.

* * *

Evan and Yunyun's mugs clashed, and they both downed the contents. Evan didn't usually drink, but this was one time where he allowed himself to do it: they'd gained a load of money! Sure, he'd made most of it, but they shared anyway!

530.000 Eris in total! It was an astronomical number for the two of them! Even after splitting, it was still 265.000 Eris each!

"I'm so glad that we didn't take any quests today! Imagine if we'd went and made barely a tenth of how much we made today! This day has been glorious!"

* * *

The night was spent in a mixture of drunken stupor and euphoria. Evan counted himself lucky to have awakened in his usual bed, all things considered.

The System had negated the aftereffects of being drunk, which he'd greatly appreciated. What he didn't appreciate quite as much was the lack of ideas on how to spend the day: sure, he could work on some skills or whatever, but a number of them had become a tad obsolete. The best choice was to work on his archery, or his nature affinity.

Yunyun, as smart as the girl was, ended up drunk too after a couple of glasses. Thus, she was out of the count for the day.

Just to be safe, Evan gave a look to his skills, remembering what the System said about combat experience.

**Short blade combat – rank A – 777/2.500**

**User's aptitude for fighting with short blades**

**125% extra damage when using short blades**

**Double Short blade combat – rank A – 377/2.500**

**User's aptitude for fighting with two blades at once**

**User can define a secondary blade: gain 100% of that blade's stat bonus**

**25% extra damage when using two short blades**

…Astounding. Absolutely astounding. Unfortunately, it seemed like he wouldn't be able to train with those skills unless he was in combat. A pity, but it seemed fair all things considered: the skills were utterly OP for his level. He might've been able to beat something much higher than his level!

Maybe the archery could wait, all in all. He'd remembered to give a look at Yunyun's staff before going completely drunk last night, and the System was kind enough to let him recall the window at a moment's notice.

**Mage staff – rank D**

**A standard-issue staff given to beginner mages**

**+10 MAG, +5 Mana, +3 RES**

Needless to say, he wasn't impressed. No teammate of his would have to use subpar equipment, if he had something to say about it! Thus he set off, asking around Axel if there was anywhere where he could purchase a good magical staff. Some people pointed him in the direction of a magic shop, which he didn't hesitate to visit.

Entering the shop, he was greeted by the sight of numerous shelves filled of various obscure items, whose use he could only guess… then again, he could just cheat.

**Outdoor torch – rank F**

**A torch that lights up as long as it is under direct sunlight**

**Power-blast potion – rank E**

**A potion that increases the user's physical prowess, at a cost**

**ATK, DEF, SPD *1.5**

**Drains half of user's maximum HP after use**

**Bomb orb – rank E**

**An orb that explodes when crushed in your hand**

**Deals 250 Fire damage**

…What was it with those useless/damaging items? The only thing that could be remotely useful was the potion, and even then only in very specific cases!

Could they be decoys for whoever was so stupid as to steal them?

"Oh, welcome! I hadn't heard anyone come in, but how may I help you?" asked someone behind Evan.

He turned around to see… a rather buxom woman. She wore a purple robe, and had long brown hair that covered one of her eyes. Probably the owner of the shop.

"I was looking for a magic staff. Do you have any suggestions?"

The woman left quickly towards the back, and returned clutching a staff. It looked rather nice, with several carvings inlaid in the wood.

**Suppressor staff – rank E**

**A staff that makes magic harder**

**Doubles the cost of all spells**

**Halves the effect of all spells**

Evan's face fell a bit at reading the description, but resolved himself to let the woman explain her reasoning.

"Here you go! This staff is perfect for beginners, letting them get used to casting smaller spells before moving on to harder things!" She made her small sales pitch, with a beaming smile on her face.

Evan didn't really have the heart to tell her that such an approach was most likely to have someone get used to overcharging spells, and then causing a disaster as soon as they got a normal staff. Instead, he opted for:

"Well, the staff isn't for me: my friend is rather adept at magic, but could use a better staff, you see?"

The woman's shoulders slumped. "I'm sorry to say, that I don't have anything like what you're looking for anymore… But!" She started again after a moment "I could make one, provided I had the right ingredients!"

"Ok." Evan nodded. "Just tell me what you need and I'll find a way to get it."

The woman began counting on her fingers. "Well, first would be a sizeable piece of wood: willow or birch are good, though if you were to find something more exotic I wouldn't mind, like aelderwood! It's been ages since I worked with it!" A small cough from Evan set her back on track "Right, wood. Then, I would need a focal point of some kind. A piece from a very magical monster would work, or a big enough gem would be fine as well. If you want the staff to be great, though, it would need a core of some kind of magic-conductive metal. Unfortunately, I'm not good enough to work with metals…"

Evan held up a hand. "I think I have someone in mind for this. Just tell me what kind of metals would be best, and leave the rest to me."

"Gold can work, but it _is_ rather heavy… Either Thaumium or Mithril would be your best choices. The downside is that any of them is rather expensive."

Evan gave a careful nod. "How much metal would you need, exactly?"

"Enough for the staff's inner core, and maybe a little excess to direct the mana from the hand to the foci. It's doable without, but the metal core makes the process way smoother."

* * *

A hop and a skip later, Evan was back at Elzi's forge… for some reason he felt like creating that one staff would become an absolute chore.

At any rate, he waited for the other customer to buy what he needed and leave. When that happened, Elzi came over to him.

"Alright lad, what's this 'custom project' you'd want me to make for you?"

"Before I get to it, would you be willing to work alongside someone else for this? This project will require both your expertise for th-"

"Out with it already!"

"A magic staff!"

Elzi's frown fell into a deadpan. "Kid, do I look like one of them fancy 'artificer' fellas? I don't do magic."

Evan rose a finger "That's also why I asked if you'd be ok with working alongside someone else."

"Ugh…" Elzi massaged her temples slowly. "Alright, go over it again. From the top."

Evan nodded. "My friend, Yunyun, has a staff that is… rather basic. It didn't feel right that I kept getting cool stuff like these-" he pulled out both of his blades "-and she got what? Some armor? So I decided to get her a better staff. Problem is, there's only one shop that deals with magic in Axel, and they were out of staves for whatever reason, so the owner offered to make one. The only issue now is that making a great staff needs a metallic core, and she can't work with metals. I hoped that you'd be willing to work with her for it."

"Of course, I'll pay for the work and any materials that you'd provide," he added as an afterthought.

Elzi snickered a bit at hearing his story. "She's one lucky lass… if only I were fifteen years younger… Well, you convinced me! I'll do it, but it will be Expensive! With a capital E! We're talking five-hundred-thousand, if not more!"

"Then I'll work my ass off and get the money!... It will also take a while to get the materials, from what I gather, so… I have the time."

"Fair 'nuff," she shrugged. "No idea what metal you'll need me to work on, though. Might come at an extra price if it's too difficult."

Evan winced. That small venture would probably render him penniless if he didn't think something up: high-risk missions? They'd definitely pay well, but were they actually ready? He could think about it later.

"Understood."

* * *

That's how Evan ended up in front of Luna again.

"Luna, I think I'm ready to take on a harder quest on my own."

Luna stared at him judgmentally.

"What? Is something wrong?"

"Yes, quite. _This_ is the pride I was talking about! You have only managed one – _ONE_ – quest that was a little bit harder than the toads, and now you think that you can come here and demand high-ranking jobs? All on your own, to boot?"

Evan quickly put his hands forward, trying to defuse the situation. "Hey, I'm not trying to go kill a dragon, or whatever fancy things you're thinking. I was asking if there was something of around the same caliber as the Starwolves, since I feel like I could take care of it on my own."

Luna let out a sigh. "That… is somewhat better. I'm not fully confident, but if you're sure you can handle at least _that_ on your own… Fair enough." She pulled out a leaflet, like always. "A small tribe of Gnolls has taken residence near the mountains north of Axel, and they've been harassing the merchants who travel there. Their numbers are small, but don't let their appearance fool you: they're a crafty bunch. Be careful."

Evan nodded, promising to keep that bit of information in his mind.

* * *

After a cart ride over to the mountains (which took five-thousand Eris and two hours), Evan was finally ready to start laying down the hurt on those Gnolls.

From what he knew, Gnolls were humanoid hyenas, or generally dog-like beings. They had the ability to use some crude weapons, which may become a problem for him… but as long as he was careful, then it was all good.

A sound echoed from behind him. He deftly pulled out his blades, ready to fight.

Four enemies had snuck up behind him. The biggest one rushed in, aiming to run him through with its spear.

Evan's **Flashing Blade** allowed him to maneuver around the stab, and attack the Gnoll. He reappeared behind the beast, its head rolling off.

"Next?"

* * *

**Another Chapter done and out! I'll be answering reviews as usual now.**

**Guest: "The update you hoped for is here. And to be honest I've been writing for a couple of years now, so I'm glad to hear that is has been paying off!"**

**Ittehgaps: "I'll make sure not to disappoint. Yeah, Kazuma had it pretty rough; thankfully Evan is better equipped to deal with this world."**

**Borgelious: "Here's more."**

**Thel310: "I'm not sure about it, though I'll be giving it some thought. If it happens, then it happens."**

**A rather chill AN, all things considered. I'll see you all next time.**


	3. Saving people in this wonderful world!

Evan sat down with a huff, observing in distaste the bite mark on his bicep. One of the gnolls had managed to catch him off-guard for a moment, surprising as it was. It was dead now, of course, but it didn't make it any less embarrassing or painful. He'd gotten too sure of himself, and that was the price he paid.

Thankfully the wound recovered within the minute.

With a now personal grudge against gnolls, Evan took his time trying to retrace the monsters' steps, in hopes to find their den… or camp, or whatever.

As Luna had told him, the gnolls were rather crafty: the tracks were barely present. It took Evan several hours of tracking, getting lost, turning back and trying again, but he'd finally found the gnoll's camp. The design of the tents reminded him of yurts, the ones used by Mongolian soldiers. They protected from the winds of the mountains, and blended in rather well with the scenery.

He was almost impressed, were it not for one tiny detail: there were two people tied to a pole in the middle of the camp. An older man, maybe in his late fifties, with ash-grey hair. He was asleep… or maybe passed out?

Next to him was a younger lad, around Evan's age. He looked rather similar to the man next to him, so maybe his son? Evan couldn't tell with certainty.

They were both gagged and bound, though the younger one seemed to be healthier than the older man; he was covered in bruises and cuts, most of which were shallow enough to not have him die of blood loss, but would definitely hurt. He had a black eye, and looked malnourished. He'd probably let the younger one have whatever food they were given.

It all made for a miserable sight.

Silently observing the scenario, Evan noticed that only one of the tents had smoke coming out of it, meaning that all the remaining gnolls were huddled up in there… Well, that or that there were more groups around. Although, considering the low number of tents, Evan discarded that possibility.

Evan mentally kicked himself for not bringing Yunyun along: her skillset would've been perfect for that scenario! Just drop a fireball and boom! No more gnolls! But no, Evan had to do it on his own!

Realizing that nothing would come out of staying there and complaining, Evan traced a mental path towards the two captives. Within two minutes of painstakingly slow movement, he'd reached the two captive men. They'd caught sight of him about halfway through, and were both staring at the only inhabited tent. Hopefully to warn him in case any gnolls were to exit.

Just as he got close enough to cut the ropes loose, a rustle came from behind him, and Evan was forced to hide behind a tent. He took a peek to assess the situation.

One gnoll had stumbled out of the tent, a very prominent stench of alcohol emanating from it, and was walking towards the captives holding a shoddy knife in its hand. The grin stretching on its face made it clear that it wasn't about to liberate the men.

Evan rushed before he even knew what he was doing: one moment he was hiding, and the other he'd Flashed behind the gnoll, stabbing it in the neck all the way up through the brain. Evan ignored the EXP and Critical Hit notifications, and dragged the body away.

Not wasting any more time, Evan rushed to the prisoners and cut their ropes off. The younger man tore off the gag immediately, and grabbed Evan's hand to hoist himself up.

"I don't know who you are," he began in a hoarse voice "But Eris herself must've sent you. We were starting to lose hope that anyone would come. We'll pay you back, I promise—"

"No time," interrupted Evan "They may come out at any moment. Can you both walk?"

The younger man grimaced. "I can, but father is probably too weak. He's been here for much longer than I."

Evan bent down, and hoisted the older man up in a bridal carry. He was lighter than average, and Evan had gained enough strength to hold him up, albeit with some difficulty.

The gnolls didn't notice anything, probably too busy getting drunk. Why exactly they were drinking, Evan didn't know nor cared to find out, but the point still stood: not even one gnoll came out to stop them from leaving. Although…

Evan stopped when they reached a place with enough cover from the wind. He set down the older man, and motioned the younger one.

"Look. Those gnolls were getting drunk. There's no way anyone will have a better chance at taking them down than right now. I need you two to wait for me while I deal with them."

The man blinked, his head snapping towards him. "Are you serious?! There's no way you can take all of them on your own! Even if you could deal with the leader and the two left at the camp, there's still another group out patrolling!"

"Really now?" Evan quirked an eyebrow. "Four gnolls, about my height, using shoddy weaponry? They're dead, laying on the road at the moment."

This time the man openly gaped at him. "How- I- I don't-"

"I'm tougher than I can seem at first glance."

After taking a moment to recompose himself, the man started again. "Alright, so you may have a chance. But do you have a plan, at least? As capable as you may be, you _are _still running towards a great risk."

Evan shrugged. "If they're still awake, I'll make a commotion, and when they come out I'll ambush them. That would get rid of at least one more, two if I time it well. In case they're already asleep, it's just a matter of sneaking in and hacking their heads off."

He rose a finger, ready to argue, but found himself unable to go against that logic. Simple as it was, it would've worked. Thus, he slowly lowered his finger.

* * *

Evan rolled his shoulders a bit to get ready. The following fight may either be intense, or a disappointment. He hoped for the latter.

He snuck over to the main tent, hoping to hear whatever was going on in there. The only thing coming from the tent was the sound of snoring… perfect!

Swiftly, he crawled in the tent, and found two gnolls sleeping. He was unaware of where the last one was, but he could worry about that later. For the moment, her limited himself to chop the two gnolls in the neck. Neither would wake up again.

The EXP he'd gained from those two gnolls was enough to send him to level 8, too! He chose to place one point into everything except MAG, one extra into Mana, and two more in ATK.

After that little break, Evan calmly walked out.

He realized that he'd made a mistake when he felt a mace collide with his side. He was thrown away several meters, and rolled a couple of more before he stopped. As he righted himself, he took stock of his enemy.

It was bulkier than any gnoll he'd seen before, though that bulk belied an impressive speed as well. It didn't seem drunk, which was an issue. It would be a hard fight, he was sure of it. At least, it was a 1v1.

**Gnoll Chieftain  
****LV: 8 [BOSS]  
****HP: 210/210  
****MP: 30/40**

**Health: 17 [21]  
****Mana: 3 [4]  
****ATK: 24 [30] (45)  
****DEF: 13 [16] (26)  
****HIT: 17 [21] (18)  
****SPD: 19 [24]  
****MAG: 1 [1]  
****RES: 15 [19]**

Evan knew for a fact that the round parentheses indicated equipment bonuses, but what were the square ones? Maybe it was due to the 'boss' status of that enemy? Still, no time to ponder on it. It was strong, and he had to take it down.

His side was throbbing in pain, but he pushed past it and ran at the gnoll. The beast, seeing him come, readied itself for a swing as soon as he came in range. Evan saw it coming and Flashed underneath the swing, between its legs, and jumped up to slash at the back of its neck.

There was one little detail that Evan had forgotten about: **Short Blade Combat** gave all his attacks with short blades a 125% boost, which was added on top of the extra 25% from **Double Short Blade Combat**, and the extra 100% from **Flashing Blade**. That added up to an extra 250% of his 77 ATK. That came up to 269 total. Even with its DEF score the gnoll chieftain's vertebrae split, killing it immediately… and getting blood all over Evan.

Evan dropped on the ground, observing the corpse in morbid fascination. He hadn't looked at his numerical damage output in a while now… he was suddenly glad that he'd grinded his combat skills to rank A before that quest. They'd provided an immense boon.

**You killed:  
****-Gnoll Chieftain [BOSS] LV 8**

**You gained 320 EXP!**

It wasn't another level, but Evan wasn't going to complain.

* * *

Evan hurried back down the mountain to the two men. When he arrived, he saw the younger one panicking, kneeling over his father. When he got closer, Evan heard some muttering:

"No, no, no… He's losing too much blood! How am I supposed to fix this!?"

A sharp slap echoed across the mountain range.

The young man stared incredulously at a blood-covered Evan while holding his aching face.

Evan wasted no time pulling the man close to him.

"Listen up," he hissed "I get that you're scared. But this is no time to panic. I need you to help me, ok?"

After he received a nod, Evan continued. "I have some basic first-aid supplies, but there's also a cart that should be coming by soon to pick me up. I need you to go down, find the person driving that cart, and explain the situation to them. Get a soft place ready on the floor of the cart. Can you do all that?"

The young man nodded hesitantly, picking up fervor when the words finally sunk in.

"Good, now go. I've got this."

As the young man hurried down the mountain path, Evan gave a grave sigh. It was time to pull out those skills he picked up from the internet during a rainy day, along with the emergency first-aid kit he'd nabbed from his old home.

* * *

**First aid - rank E - 31/100  
User's ability to heal wounds through mundane means  
25% HP regeneration increase**

Evan finally pulled back. It may not have been a professional job, but it should allow the man to survive until they managed to get him to Axel.

It had been a strenuous job, working against the clock like that. And yet…

**Name: ? (Old man)  
****LV: 1  
****HP: 8/40 (+0.5 HP/min)  
****MP: N/A**

**Health: 4  
****Mana: 5  
****ATK: 6  
****DEF: 5  
****HIT: 7  
****SPD: 6  
****MAG: 4  
****RES: 3**

It was slightly surprising to see that he couldn't read the man's name, but… it made sense, in some way.

"_I never tried to analyze a person whose name I didn't know… It seems to base itself off of my perception of them. I wonder… if I were to analyze that girl who was with Yunyun back then, would she turn out as 'little brat'?"_ While Evan pondered that and other questions, he heard some footsteps approaching.

The young man had returned, and although he was panting heavily Evan could see a spark of hope in his eyes.

"The… the cart is here… It's ready…"

Without wasting anymore time than was needed, Evan and the young man carefully hauled the injured man over to the cart. The driver, being aware of the situation, pushed his horses to their limits, hoping to reach Axel in time to get help for the wounded fellow.

While that happened, Evan kept monitoring his 'patient', making sure that his low health wouldn't deteriorate. He also tried keeping the other man occupied by conversing to each other, to avoid making him worry.

"Say, who are you two? You never had a chance to introduce yourselves."

The young man sat up a bit straighter. "Oh, that's true. I am Damian, and this is my father Oliver. Men in our family are merchants by trade, with the eldest son always taking over the company from the father. After my brother took charge, Father took to making some of the quieter deliveries himself. 'It's good for my old bones' he said…" Damian cringed, probably remembering what happened.

Trying to veer the conversation away, Evan asked something else. "You mentioned a company? Maybe I heard of it?"

Damian scratched his cheek a bit in contempt. "I wouldn't know… we are more well-known in the north-eastern side of Belzerg. We were going over to Axel mainly because father wanted to meet an old friend there. Still, if you ever buy anything from the 'Road of Spices', I will make sure that you get a heavy discount! It's the least I could do; after all you did save us."

Evan cringed just a bit at that. "A bit early to say that," he muttered.

"I'm sorry, what? I couldn't catch that."

"Ah! I, uh…" Evan tried to find something else to talk about. "You mentioned a brother taking charge, right? Then what do _you_ do with your life?"

Damian looked as if he's swallowed a lemon. "Well… the fact is that…"

Before he could continue, the driver yelled at them. "We're almost at Axel!"

Evan looked up, and in fact he could see the gate he'd left several hours ago approaching. When they got close enough to be heard by the guards in front, he tried to get their attention.

"Hey! We have a wounded man with us! Go get some help!"

One of the guards motioned at the other, who quickly turned tail and went into town. The other motioned for them to stop. Once they stopped, he climbed up the cart to get a good look at what the fuss was about. As soon as he saw the wounded and still bleeding man, he quickly knelt down and inspected the bandages with a critical eye.

After a few tense moments, in which he shifted some bandages, tightened up some others, and loosened some more, he got back up. The guard looked over to Evan.

"Are you the one who patched him up?"

Evan nodded quietly, still looking for when help would arrive.

"You did some good work, son. Not great, but it worked well enough. You should be proud."

Evan gave the older man a withering glare. "I'll be proud when he will be awake and able to walk around!"

Needless to say, Evan was rather on edge at the moment.

Thankfully the other guard returned quickly with a mage following. The mage looked rather frail and old, maybe in his seventies, but the fire in his eyes belied decades of experience and confidence. His golden and white robes billowed as he ran over to the cart, a long staff tapping the ground in sync with his steps.

As he saw the mage approach, Evan pulled Damian back from the cart, to let the old man do his job. What resulted was a quick series of muttered words, alongside some signs drawn in the air. Still, it seemed to have an effect if the glow surrounding Oliver's body was any indication.

After several seconds, the old mage pulled back.

"There is no more that I can do here," he began in a deep, austere voice. "Bring him to the church's healing ward. The ambient magic will keep him stable and allow him to recover."

As the cart was being wheeled away, Evan's eyes flicked over to the corner of his eyesight.

**Mana scanning paused. 7%**

While Evan was happy to see that the progress wouldn't leave even if he were to leave a certain mana field for some time, it did raise some questions: could he go and learn healing magic? It would be very useful, all things considered.

He didn't really have a choice in the matter at the moment, as the two guards had forced Damian and him to meet the captain in order to recount the story.

By the time that they finished, it was well over dinnertime, so Evan chose to return to the Guild. The guards had assured him that they'd provide Damian with a place to stay while his father recovered, so he wasn't too worried.

When he opened the doors to the Guild, the first thing that assaulted his nose was the smell of booze. While it wasn't anything new, the raw amount was enough to make him gag a bit. Nonetheless, he powered through.

Inside, the culprit seemed rather obvious: a very loud woman with blue hair and an attire that was as skimpy as it was blue was dancing on one of the tables, with several men cheering at her. She demonstrated some tricks with fans and water, maybe a minor spell, and all the men gave another loud roar as one.

He could also see a teenager, about Yunyun's age from what he could tell, trying to get up on the table. Unfortunately for him, people kept grabbing his green hood and throwing him away.

In the end, he chose against getting involved. He had more important things to deal with than some kid's infatuation. Like how to explain that whole mess of a day to Yunyun.

He found her sitting near the back of the Guild, looking as glum as the day they'd met. Just as he was about to get closer, she caught sight of him and ran at him like a bullet. The impact was powerful enough to know the wind out of him, but at least he stood standing.

"You- YOU JERK!" Yunyun yelled as she thumped her fists against Evan's chest. "WHERE WERE YOU?! YOU'VE BEEN GONE THE WHOLE DAY!"

Evan didn't answer, he just let Yunyun do as she wanted. She wasn't really hurting him, and he did deserve it a bit.

"I- I-" She sniffled a bit. "Miss Luna said that you took a quest… I waited… but you didn't come back…"

At that point she was downright crying, so Evan couldn't do anything other than hug her and let her vent her frustration like that. He'd tell her what happened another time.

* * *

"I see… so that's what happened."

"Pretty much. Not much to be said after that: the guards took us in to hear our story, got Damian a place to stay, and I went back ho- to the Guild."

Yunyun hummed and continued to eat her breakfast. While she didn't seem to have noticed Evan's small slip, he certainly had.

"_Am I seriously thinking about this place as my home already?"_ He wondered. It did feel rather weird to call home a place where he literally popped into… _"Just a week ago. Unbelievable. And yet, I feel more at ease here than I was back in my old world… I suppose that home really is where the heart's at, huh?"_ Evan smirked to himself, appreciating Yunyun's company.

"_I'm pretty sure that she's part of the reason why I consider this place home. After all, it's been a while since anyone was actually worried about me… it feels kinda nice."_

Last night, after Yunyun was done crying, he'd brought her to bed and let her rest, with the promise of explaining all in the morning. To be completely honest, he didn't really say everything: nothing about the project, specifically. He wanted it to be a surprise, so he just mentioned that it was a personal project that would help both of them a lot.

After Yunyun had her breakfast, he walked up to Luna's counter to turn in the quest.

"Hey Luna, guess who's got another quest do—"

The Guild's door flew open, interrupting him. A heavy set of steps approached, originating from the man in heavy steel armor who just arrived. He took a sweeping glance at the room, and his helmet-covered eyes locked onto Evan.

As the knight strode closer, Evan felt Yunyun inching behind him to stay away from the beast of a man. He had to steel his face in order to not show his rising dread.

Now standing face to face, Evan saw that his eyes came up to the man's chin… which said a lot, considering that Evan himself was rather tall.

"…Can I help you?" Asked Evan.

"You helped enough…" said a muffled voice from within the helmet. A hand came up to the visor, and pulled it up. "…Now it's my turn to help you!"

Evan blinked. "…Damian?"

The young man gave a cheeky grin. "The one and only! Surprised to see me again so soon?"

"Yeah, you could say that." Evan nodded, stupefied. _"How did he get so buff in a single night?! And was he always this tall?"_

Damian wagged a finger in front of his nose with a chastising 'tsk'. "It's not polite to stare, sir Evan. Though, I understand your perplexity. You see, while I was still in decent health when you found me, I hadn't done any proper movement for a long time. That, coupled with my lack of proper food, forced me to lose a great chunk of my physique. A night of rest, some food, and healing magic took care of it!"

Without saying anything, Evan pulled up Damian's data.

**Name: Damian  
****LV: 9 (19/729 )  
****HP: 280/280  
****MP: 80/80**

**Health: 20 (28)  
****Mana: 8  
****ATK: 19 (34)  
****DEF: 23 (87)  
****HIT: 15 (19)  
****SPD: 10 (15)  
****MAG: 5  
****RES: 20 (41)**

There were no words to describe Evan's astonishment. None whatsoever. If he was so powerful before, how were they captured? Asleep, maybe?

Who cared, it was unbelievable!

"So, uh…" Evan began, feeling a little apprehensive. "What was that about you helping us?"

Damian slammed his hand on his chestplate. "Both my father and I owe you our lives. As such, I hope you will accept me in your party. I shall do my best to protect you as you have for us."

Thoroughly surprised at this turn of events, Evan tried to silently ask Luna for help. She didn't even look at him.

Without any other choice, Evan had to make the decision himself. _"His stats are good, sure, but has he actually been in a fight to the death before? I'd rather not traumatize the guy. Though… if he's that strong, he's probably an adventurer already. That still begs the question of how they got captured, but I can just ask later, I guess."_

There was only one good choice there, after all.

"Alright, welcome aboard Damian." Evan extended his hand toward the man, who shook it with fervor.

"Thank you, sir! I will do my best to live up to your expectations!" Damian let go of his hand, and motioned over to Luna's counter. "If you'll excuse me, I have to register as an adventurer now."

"…what," Evan whispered.

Damian either didn't hear or chose to ignore it, as he sidestepped Evan and walked up to Luna.

"Are you alright?" Asked Yunyun, after seeing Evan not move a millimeter.

His eyelid twitched a bit. "I was tricked. I was backstabbed. And quite possibly bamboozled too."

"Ok…"

* * *

As it turned out, Damian's stats were enough for him to start off with the Paladin class. Not as high as a Crusader, but it was still very good. He could use buffs, which would be very helpful in taking down powerful foes, along with an already high resistance to most types of damage made him a great ally and a dangerous foe.

The only thing that he needed was to _stop RUNNING!_

"Will you stand still and take it, you big baby?!"

"Sir Evan, I'm not really sure if this is a good- whoa!" He jumped back "A good idea!"

Evan stopped for a moment, rubbing his temples. "Look," he began. "I get that you're not thrilled about taking hits. Neither am I. But as the party's toughest person, you need to man up and do it."

Damian had at least the decency to look down in shame.

"I understand if you're scared. It may not look like it, but I get scared too, some times. As a wise person said: 'Having no fear doesn't mean you are brave. It means you're stupid. Being brave is to keep going despite your fear'." Evan was now right in front of Damian, staring into his eyes. "If we all want to return safely from any adventure, we mustn't falter. If even one of us hesitates, then we're as good as dead."

"Understood," sighed Damian.

Evan stepped back, and readied his blade again. "Ok, remember: don't take my attacks head-on if you can. Redirect them."

He struck again, and this time the dull clang of metal on metal rang out. Evan found himself tilt dangerously to the side, his aim thrown off. He recovered his footing, and turned his eyes to Damian again. A determined look burned in his eyes, and it was mirrored by Evan. They both grinned, and the assassin lunged again.

* * *

**Short chapter this time, unfortunately. I wish I'd written more, but for some reason I don't really have much in the way of creative juices lately. I'll return to MK2 now, hopefully manage to put some words together on the page.**

**If you want something else to read I have a suggestion to give: "There is no future without a past", by one God of Myself. It's only around 10K words, but I find it pretty nice.**

**Alright, review time.**

**Ittehgaps: "For the most part that would be correct. He can train with his weapons for a long time, and then go into battle to make them increase in rank very easily, but as soon as he hits rank S all the progress in nullified, as the xp counter is reset to 0. In other words, he gets a skill enough XP to make it reach level S, but as soon as it gets there all leftover XP is gone. I'm glad that you enjoy all the characters I surrounded Evan with, and here's hoping that everyone keeps enjoying them."**

**Prisontaker: "Glad to hear you are having fun, and welcome to the cozy little family."**

**Ok, done now. Thanks to Dylan-A-Friend, Borgelious, and zackman2k12 for reviewing as well, but I decided to not write down individual replies just to say thanks over and over again.**


	4. a premature end to this wonderful world

**Well... it's been a bit since I updated this fic. You know how AGODAL ended? Yeah...**

**Sorry. It was nice in the beginning, but I work best when I have actual info to write from. So, I decided to reboot and choose another world. Is this a trashy cop out? I can definitely say... maybe. I don't really give a damn, to be fair: I write because I ****_want_**** to. I don't owe my work to anybody other than myself.**

**So if I say that I'm taking Evan somewhere else, and changing the system too? Well, I'll fucking do just that. New story should be up within the hour. Look out for "An Archer among Demons".**

**Alien-kun (yeah I changed nicknames, what about it), out.**


End file.
